GP Kyoto

[Mkr]

GP Kyoto 2015 TO Site (http://www.arclight.co.jp/mtg/en/gpkyoto2015/)

Just a head's up: Pre-registration # is currently at 1488 (counting registrations up to 2/23), with max slots set at 1950.

So who's going? :smile:

[iamajellydonut]

http://i.imgur.com/esJudjN.png

Perfect.

[Phelix]

I was seriously tempted, and so were most of Team EuroSwag, I chose the MKM series instead.

Will be interesting to see a large legacy event in Asia. This is the first legacy GP there, right?

[Finn]

All of the past GPs have been in North America and Europe. And honestly, I have the foggiest idea of what the Japanese meta is like or how big the format is there or really anything. I don't know any people in Japan who play Legacy, even just as internet contacts. Freakin' cool!

[Mkr]

You killed it!

Jk, it's alive now: :laugh:
http://i.imgur.com/FU2x3lr.png

This looks to be big (likely reaching the cap). Prereg started on 2/18, and the count looks to have picked up the last few days:
2/19 - 864
2/20 - 982
2/21 - 1101
2/22 - 1258
2/23 - 1488

Luckily I'm already in.

[lordofthepit]

GP Kyoto 2015 TO Site (http://www.arclight.co.jp/mtg/en/gpkyoto2015/)

Just a head's up: Pre-registration # is currently at 1488 (counting registrations up to 2/23), with max slots set at 1950.

So who's going? :smile:

They've already filled over 75% of the capacity from pre-registrations alone almost two months from the event?

[Mkr]

Update: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/grand-prix-kyoto-sold-out-2015-02-27

Wow.

[lordofthepit]

Update: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/grand-prix-kyoto-sold-out-2015-02-27

Wow.

I've always said that the size of convention centers was more of a limiting factor for Legacy GPs than the number of dual lands available...

[Esper3k]

I guess people haven't gotten the memo that Legacy is a dying format. #StandardHobosCanDream

[Namida]

I'm going with a bunch of friends, but none of the Japanese players I know are going because traveling from the other side of the mainland to Kyoto is more inconvenient than it should be, and no up in these parts is serious enough to want to day the days off of work to travel.

Everyone in my group minus one person made it in under the cap--Everyone in the group wanted the Swords playmat so they preregistered ASAP. The site was always slow to update and I started freaking out once I found out there was a player cap,

[phonics]

This even is going to be sick, hope Saito streams it.

[kaiserruhsam]

I'm going with a bunch of friends, but none of the Japanese players I know are going because traveling from the other side of the mainland to Kyoto is more inconvenient than it should be, and no up in these parts is serious enough to want to day the days off of work to travel.

Everyone in my group minus one person made it in under the cap--Everyone in the group wanted the Swords playmat so they preregistered ASAP. The site was always slow to update and I started freaking out once I found out there was a player cap,

Are you in tohoku? I was planning to take a boat from Akita, but wizards did a horrible job communicating anything about the event so I won't be going.

[Namida]

Are you in tohoku? I was planning to take a boat from Akita, but wizards did a horrible job communicating anything about the event so I won't be going.

I live so far up in Aomori that I can literally see Hokkaido from my front door. For the people up here, it's hundreds of dollars in travel by plane or train and multiple days off of work to attend the event; none of the Japanese players that I talked to were willing to to both drop that kind of cash on travel and ask their employers for time off of work to play cards.

I'm more used than I should be to being out of the loop, and the only reason I was able to jump on preregistering for the event is that I asked about how to register at a GPT that happened to luckily be held on the first weekend of registration.

[Mkr]

Any tips re: playing Magic for us non-nihongo speakers?

[kaiserruhsam]

Any tips re: playing Magic for us non-nihongo speakers?

I used http://thejapanhobbyist.com/current-magic-the-gathering-vocabulary-in-japanese/ since I'm mostly illiterate and don't know any grammar words or conjugations. As far as rules text, you're probably used to not being able to read the cards because of pimping anyway, just remember you can always call a judge and ask for oracle text but that the electronic device use policy prevents you from looking it up yourself. Just make sure you're explicit about steps and phases if it matters. It's not require in the mtr or anything that I remember, but the local courtesy is to count out your sideboard before presenting your deck game 1. People will still do it for games 2 and 3, but to some extent that's bleeding information since the last rule change.

Everybody knows what all of the cards in the DTB do, right? The turn structure stuff is probably the most important.

[Namida]

Any tips re: playing Magic for us non-nihongo speakers?

I've found that most Japanese players understand enough Magic/English to be able to play a game of Magic with an English speaker and no problems. Many of them will actively make an effort to accommodate you by speaking English. Basically, if you speak in clear English, most people understand: play first, mulligan, hand size, the steps and phases in a turn, etc. While players will know what cards do, unless they're super ubiquitous, they may not know the English name of a card, so if you're playing Cabal Therapy or something, that can be an issue.

I haven't been to any Competitive REL events, but one thing I've noticed that's different than America is that many Japanese players present their maindeck and fan out their sideboard face down to show you there are 15 cards before every game. Another thing to note is that the most popular shuffling style I have seen here looks like it's straight out of Yu-gi-oh, and it's not sufficient randomization in my book. A lot of players pile shuffle before matches but beware the people who don't, and beware the shitty quick shuffle in the middle of games (I don't think people are trying to be sketchy, but it's a really horrible shuffle job).

The last thing I've heard from players in my area is that many people are really touchy about asking for permission to see your cards. It might be different at a higher REL, but people around here feel weird asking you to let them see your graveyard or exile pile. Not really something you should worry about (it's their loss if they don't ask you), but when I watch videos of people play I see a lot of reaching out and grabbing opponent's cards without asking and that seems to be a whole lot less okay in Japan.

[Lemnear]

Any tips re: playing Magic for us non-nihongo speakers?

Seriously? Ever been to a big european tournament like the BoM? Dozens of countries/languages in the room, but like everyone speaks at least enough english to play the game. Language should not be your issue within a community which is mainly communicating in english via Blogs/forums/websites. If issues occur, international Judges will assist.

[Sloshthedark]

The last thing I've heard from players in my area is that many people are really touchy about asking for permission to see your cards. It might be different at a higher REL, but people around here feel weird asking you to let them see your graveyard or exile pile. Not really something you should worry about (it's their loss if they don't ask you), but when I watch videos of people play I see a lot of reaching out and grabbing opponent's cards without asking and that seems to be a whole lot less okay in Japan.

All good habits (Not the shuffle), I always felt like grabbing without asking and tossing cards around is like a challenge for a physical contact

[Lord Seth]

I just hope that they use Twitch instead of Nico Video for the coverage. Japanese Grand Prix seem to usually be covered by the latter, which is frustrating if you want to watch it later because while Twitch lets anyone watch previously recorded streams, Nico Video requires you to purchase a premium membership if you want to watch the videos after the fact.

[T-101]

Of course I don't condone any shenanigans or anything, but I wonder if anyone who's Twitch savvy will restream the GP :)